Tropicana / Polaris

MicroHidroGrow Day 01. I'm starting with a new system. This time I didn't put a mother plant since I got the cuttings loose. But the idea is that the tip where there's a single plant will be the mother of the 6 cuttings I took. I put 4 Tropicana cuttings at the front and in the place of the mother. And I put 3 Polaris cuttings in the back pipe of the system. The flowering times are approximately 55 to 63 days for both varieties, so the timing will align for adding products and harvesting. The cuttings had some issues during rooting, that's why they're a bit messed up, but in a week at the latest they should start reacting and beginning to grow. I'll see how many weeks I let them grow. The system has some water leaks, but they're drips that I'm going to seal.

MicroHidroGrow Day 10. The Tropicana are already starting to grow and show new leaves. The Polaris are coming along a bit slower, but there's still some reaction. For now, the system is working well. I have a move coming up soon, so I might get a bit behind on the updates.

MicroHidroGrow Day 19. The Tropicana have reacted very well. I took the opportunity to do LST on one and HST on the other. The Polaris were revegetating, so that delayed them. But they have started to stretch. Also, I had to cut the main branch of one and leave 2 side branches since it was very damaged. I kept the nutrient solution from last week and I’ll probably change it today or tomorrow. I’m going to have to wait to switch them to flowering since I have a move in a few weeks. So flowering will be after the move.

MicroHidroGrow Day 25. The plants are doing very well. They have shown tremendous growth. The Tropicana strain is coming along nicely and is very bushy. I'm applying a different technique for each plant of this strain. I have one with LST, another with apical topping. One with HST and another without structural cutting, but I'm removing the branches that will stay too low. The Polaris started to stretch and it's looking interesting. But since they are revegetated cuttings, I will see based on the results whether I keep it or not.

MicroHidroGrow Day 31. The plants have really shot up these days. I'm thinking about switching them to flowering earlier. But I don't want to move them at the beginning of flowering to avoid stress. It would be nice to have a reference for how much they gain in height during flowering. If it's double the height, there won't be a problem. But if it's triple or more, like many varieties I've done, it can get complicated from little to a lot. I've already cut clones to try to keep both varieties. I'll keep an eye on it, but it's 10 more days of growth and roots that are going to fill everything up.

MicroHidroGrow Day 02. I had to start the flowering. The roots were starting to come out through the drainage pipe. Also, I'm noticing that with a lot of water trapped between the roots, they take it up faster and I'm not sure if the 20 liters I put in will be enough. I had this problem a while back and had forgotten about it. But I'm not too worried. I know I can handle it calmly. So in the end, last week was only 3 days. Now I'm going to plan things out well, since the height difference in one of the Polaris will force me to do some rigorous LST. I'm also starting to think of ways to prevent root blockage. I think I'll come up with something to implement at some point. I'm going to do a big leaf trim when the pre-flower stretch is done. Because I want to see how much removing the main leaf affects a branch. I've cut some and left a few others. I applied Greenhouse's Feeding Enhancer foliarly the night I switched to flowering. I'll probably do another application in a week. I had to lower the watering frequency from 30/30 to 15/45 per hour, because I think that made them grow so big so quickly. Still, it's something I'll keep in mind for the future. Day 04 I'm worried about how quickly they're taking up the nutrient solution. I put in 20 liters 4 days ago and there are only 12 liters left. At this rate, I'm going to have to start putting in a lot more than expected. Although I think that when I do a strong leaf trim, they'll start regulating their water consumption more. Also, since the roots have grown so much, there's more solution stagnating in the roots and being consumed. So that's also something to improve. I like that the plants are like this, but I feel like I won't be able to control them.

MicroHidroGrow Day 08 We entered the second week of flowering. I made the move and had to cut a bit of roots since they had gone through the pipes to the reservoir. The roots are so grown that I can't even lift the plants with their baskets. So I couldn't roll them to put them back in the pipe. I even found that the roots were getting into the black rubber tubes that water them. I had to take them out and clear them. In short, yesterday I did a preventive wash with hydrogen peroxide to clean any possibility of fungi in the system. For now, they look healthy and are progressing. I'm waiting for the stretch to finish so I can do a leaf trim. Anyway, I'm going to use a type of trimming that I've done before and has worked really well for me. Instead of cutting the leaves from the bottom, I cut the large leaves from the top, and that way I leave a base of leaves in the middle of the plant, which feed all the branches. And that way, I don't have anything blocking the light to the flowers I want to keep. From that half of the plant down, there are no branches left. I've already cut some. But next week I'm going to do the real trimming. I'm a bit scared of the size of the roots. I don't know where this could end. Day 12 Today I did a heavy defoliation. I cut a lot of leaves and branches. But the cut I made is a type of cut that I've done before with very good results. I choose a height that is usually between the 2nd and 3rd node, and I cut all the large leaves from the top, leaving only the large leaves in the middle and bottom. All the tips I leave are above that level of leaves I keep. Below that, nothing. This way, the plant continues to receive light on all the flowers and on the leaves below them. I'm just worried that the main branches of each plant have gotten too close together. So I'm going to have to apply intensive LST when they start to fatten. Surely now they will start taking less water, given that with the amount of leaves there were before, they were transpiring a lot. Now it will be a matter of monitoring the fattening and not failing when it comes to applying nutrients. For the 3rd week, I plan to start adding big bud to the mix I use. And keep the bud blood, but at half the dose. In the end, they became so dense that I couldn't leave one without cutting leaves, given that we were already talking about fan leaves that spanned almost the entire indoor width. I hope that flowering starts properly soon.

MicroHidroGrow Day 16. Yesterday during the solution change, I forgot to plug in the pump and the plants were a bit droopy today. I noticed in time and only had to remove 6 large leaves that suffered a lot and fell. Then I turned on the continuous pump, lowered the light intensity a bit, and in a couple of hours the plants were already much better. This week I added big bud from Advance and cut the bud blood in half. I bought a pH and TDS meter, but I need to buy batteries. So far, I'm flying blind relying on feeding, and honestly, it hasn't let me down. I did some LST to better utilize the space, expose more branches, and even out the height of the plants. The flowers have started to appear and they look like a respectable size. Day 19. The plants adapted very well to the LST. The flowers are starting to form. Luckily, they look great and I'm happy with how they're coming along. Defoliating quite a bit made the plants take less water, and now the 20-liter reservoir is working well for me. I'm really anxious, but I feel like time is passing by very quickly.

MicroHidroGrow Day 22. The plants are doing really well. I see a good size of flowers and a good amount for now. I hope they keep going this way. I estimate it will be about 9 weeks of flowering in total. So, entering the 4th week, I plan to start using the overdrive from next week. I will definitely have to do another defoliation. Day 24. The flowering is going very well. The plants are fattening up evenly. I took advantage of the fact that some plants are shorter in height and it aligns diagonally, so I set the light at an angle to achieve an even distance to the light for all the plants. I'm going to read some diaries to see when they started using overdrive from Advanced.

MicroHidroGrow Day 29. I have an invasion of fungus gnats. I'm going to treat them with Phitonat Plus and BTI. For now, the plants are doing very well. I did a major defoliation and exposed all the flowers to light. The temperature of the solution started to rise since we're entering spring, but for now, I have it under control. What worries me is the pest, so I'm going to try to resolve it as soon as possible.

MicroHidroGrow Day 36. In the end, I was able to get rid of the little fly infestation. I used Phitonat plus foliar and added BTI to the reservoir. It was almost instant with both. The plants are starting to bulk up quite a bit. They look really good. The Polaris variety is making dense and large buds, while the Tropicana are producing smaller flowers more distributed along the branch. I think the Polaris is going to surprise us. Last week I decided not to use EMRO, and when I changed the reservoir, there were quite a few root remnants falling off. So I put it back in to convert those roots into sugar for the plants. Each time there's less left, and I'm uncertain about what's going to happen. The Polaris has a slightly shorter flowering time in theory. So it's likely that the Tropicana will need 2 weeks of root flushing when the time comes.

MicroHidroGrow Day 43 The Tropicana strain didn't bulk up at all. The buds are skinny. Very firm and full of resin. But they're small. Even in the one where I didn't do any cutting or LST. So it must be some issue with the phenotype. The Polaris, on the other hand, has big buds and is taking a bit longer than the Tropicana. Anyway, it looks like both are producing a lot of trichomes. Going back to using EMRO made a huge difference in the rest of the solution left in the reservoir at the end of the week. With EMRO, it comes out clear. Without EMRO, it comes out full of root debris. And with just 1ml/L. Now I put 2ml/L since next week is the flush, so I want to really give it a good thorough treatment. I even thought about using EMRO for this flush as an experiment. So I might do that. I'll probably have to cut one before the other. But I'll keep an eye on it.

MicroHidroGrow I started the root washing. I'm using only water with a pH adjusted to 5.8 and I'm changing the entire reservoir every day. The idea would be to finish the week with the same EC for input as for output. The Tropicana ended up disappointing in quantity, as they didn't bulk up. But they are very full of trichomes. The Polaris, on the other hand, bulked up and are doing very well. I imagine they'll take a couple more days. But I don't think too long. I did a very strong defoliation. They're almost manicured already.

MicroHidroGrow The truth is that it wasn't a strain that fattened up much. Believe it or not, it smells like fried milanesa. I had been feeling that. But I confirmed it when I did the manicure. They're very full of trichomes and super sticky. The buds are quite hard. We'll see when they dry.